A forum for those current students who are or may be transferring from one school to another. Post any questions, advice, or other transfer related comments here.

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I am actually in a very similar situation. I am in the second semester of my second year as a part-time student and am applying to transfer up at the end of the year. From everything I have researched, most schools are PT transfer friendly.

Usually they require you to have completed the equivalent of a 1L course load to be eligible to transfer (most only accept grades better than a C). Also, they will only accept 28-30 credits which means you will likely have to give up some credits. This makes sense b/c after completing your second year as a PT student you have essentially finished the FT 1L courses (plus a few extra classes).

There are a few schools that limit the amount of credits you can have to be eligible to transfer, but I've only seen a few schools like that.

I think the answer might be different if you are looking to transfer from a T4 to a T2 than if you are looking to go from a Tier 2 to T14 or T25. I guess the question is how high do you think is within reach for you? It sounds from the last post that a lot of T2 schools will accept PT transfers. But you've already been accepted to a mid T2 school (Rutgers), where you'll have decent job prospects in the region if you perform. I don't know how much you would have to gain from transferring from say, Rutgers to a higher T2, or even cracking just inside the T50.

Have you applied to Fordham? If you're still waiting to hear back from them, they have a PT program where you could start now (if you're accepted) and switch to FT later if things work out for you. If you perform well at Fordham, you will have plenty of options, and won't have to worry about transferring. Now, if you have a 170/3.9 or something and you would be settling even for Fordham, that's a different story.

From the research I have done for myself, in the case of many T25 schools, if they say the maximum credits is 32 for example, that doesn't mean if you have 40 you will "give up" 8 credits. It means if you have 40 credits, they won't even read your application. You should read the thread that BUbobby24 linked to. It concludes that Virginia, GULC, GW, WUSTL, Emory, Fordham and BU are T30ish schools which are PT-transfer-friendly. A couple of them do even accept Spring Transfers after 3 semesters, but these are the exceptions rather than the rule. You aren't foreclosing the possibility of transfer by going PT, but you are limiting your possibilities.

With that said, I have heard from more than one person that they bend the rules sometimes at some schools. So if there is a school that you really want, maybe it's worth a shot at applying if you don't meet the max/min credits requirement, but there is definitely a chance they won't read your app.

Now about your Rutgers question - the general guidelines for PT students might be minimum 8 credits. However, most schools have a very structured first year where you have no choice in classes, other than selecting the FT or PT track. I don't know about RU-Newark specifically, but I would be surprised if you could just take 8 credits each of your first and second semesters. 10 is more of the norm. There is a guy named king3780 who goes to Newark and answers a lot of questions here. Maybe you can PM him and he can tell you specifially. But if that’s right, 10 + 10 + 8 + 8 = bust.

What I meant about Fordham is did you apply there to start as a 1L? You said you were in NYC, and they have PT, so I was wondering if that might be a possibility for you where you were happy with your school from the start and don’t have to worry as much about transferring.